


You Can Still Be Free

by mohinikapuahi



Series: Crash & Burn [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-12
Updated: 2011-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:42:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mohinikapuahi/pseuds/mohinikapuahi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: You Can Still be Free<br/>Prompt: H/C prompt - Cursed<br/>Rating: G<br/>Beta: Alassenya<br/>Warning: Spoilers for Season 1<br/>Summary:Danny deals with Steve's time in captivity.<br/>Authors Notes: Written for HC Bingo on Dreamwidth, Prompt: Cursed</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Still Be Free

**Author's Note:**

> Author Notes: Part 2 of the Crash & Burn AU. Thank you so much to Alassenya for taking my ramblings and making them what they are now.

Feel the presence all around  
A tortured soul  
A wound unhealing  
No regrets or promises  
The past is gone  
But you can still be free...

Danny sat behind the wheel in his car, eyes fixed on the prison gate. His good leg bounced, knocking against the bottom of the steering wheel, while his fingers tapped a nervous tattoo on the top. He sighed impatiently. He always stopped at the gate every Tuesday and Thursday. He never made any attempt to enter the prison - he knew Steve wouldn't see him if he did - but he waited there, and listened to Chin's report when he came out .

Glancing up, he looked at the edges of the pictures caught behind the sun visor. That small collection of pictures represented everything in the world that was important to him. Lifting his hand he flipped the visor down. Gracie smiled at him, her pigtails crooked, but her precious smile broad and happy. He missed his little girl. It had been a month since he had seen her - four weeks since he had forgotten all about his wife and daughter waiting for him at the airport; four weeks since his entire world had gone to hell.

As his gaze shifted to the the postcard of his beloved Jersey, a pang of homesickness gripped him. Swallowing tightly, he looked away and his eyes found the newest addition - a picture that had been taken at Meka’s wake, which Amy had given to him the last time he had visited. It showed Steve in his uniform, his features soft, a gentle smile curving his lips as he watched something across the room. Danny's breath hitched in his throat as he thought of his workmate ... his friend ... his partner.

The stupid noble fool, Danny thought, remembering their last meeting. If he thought that Danny hadn’t seen right through his intentions at their last meeting, he was a bigger idiot than Danny had given him credit for.

He had seen the pain and the suffering in Steve’s eyes, even after only two days of captivity. If pushing Danny aside, cutting him loose so he didn’t become collateral damage in Wo Fat’s scheming, was what it took to make things easier for him to survive, then so be it. Danny could play a good game, he could play along, he could make Steve think he hated the sight of him - anything to help him endure his incarceration. But ... God help the stubborn bastard once he was out of Haleiwa. Danny was going to throttle him.

Besides, it wasn’t that hard for Danny to act heartbroken. He was.

Life was beating down on him on so many fronts he was starting to think he was cursed. He was cursed always to be in the wrong place. He was cursed always to love the wrong person. He was cursed always to have happiness at his fingertips but never in his grasp .

Sighing, he closed his eyes and thought back over the last month . Rachel was never going to let him forget that he had abandoned her at the airport. No matter how many times he told her that he knew she was safe and Gracie was with her, or that Steve was fighting for what could be his life and was all alone, she wouldn’t listen. She had wailed and and ranted and finally turned to jealous anger. The last time she had spoken to him she had asked him bitterly if he was fucking Steve at the same time as he was reconciling with her. While he'd vehemently denied her accusations, she hadn't believed him. It didn’t matter. He was telling the truth ... unfortunately. A little voice at the back of his consciousness told him that had the opportunity arisen, Rachel would be right. Danny would have taken the opportunity to fuck Steve without a second's hesitation.

For twelve months Danny had been aware of the energy between himself and Steve, but he refused to acknowledge it ... he was afraid to acknowledge it. He knew that if he gave it a name or identified the emotion, would change the dynamics of their partnership. Yes, it drove Danny nuts. Yes, Steve had no regard for rules or even common sense and trampled over regulations and civil liberties like a tank over a parquet floor. Yes, Danny complained about it every single time, volubly and at great length, to anyone who would listen. But Danny loved working with Steve: he loved the man's energy, his drive, his personal honour and integrity; and he wasn't going to risk anything that might harm their professional relationship. So, if seeing Steve change shirts left him half-hard and wanting to trace the line of Steve’s ribs with his fingers, or if his mouth went dry when he caught Steve appraising him from under those ridiculously long lashes that he wanted to feel brushing across his skin, then so be it. He would just take a few minutes of time out to deal with it. Cold showers and broken sleep had become his bed mates.

To be perfectly honest, their partner dynamic aside, Danny would be lying if he wasn’t a little afraid to define whatever it was between them. If it was lust, then that was one thing: it was perfectly reasonable to feel lust for more than one person at a time, even if the other person was an ex-wife. If it was love, though - and he suspected that it might be - then that was a whole lot worse. Love was supposed to be monogamous. If you love someone, you don't lust after others, and you certainly don't go fucking around without protection and end up getting someone else pregnant. Not like he'd done.

Danny sighed Whatever he felt, whatever he'd done, he had fucked up well and truly. He'd made his bed, and now he had no choice but to sleep in it and make the best of it that he could, whichever.

On one hand he had a beautiful pregnant woman who wanted to be his wife - even if she despised him - and take a second chance at making a family with him in his beloved hometown. On the other he had a man who made him want, made him need with an intensity that he hadn’t known existed. It wasn’t even the burning desire that clawed at him even in his sleep; it was the comfortable affection, the camaraderie and the ease they shared on the job. It was the way that he knew Steve had his back and would protect him to the death without question or hesitation, as he would for Steve. Steve was the yin to his yang, the sweet to his sour. In a perfect world, without stupid homophobic rules, regulations and workmates, Steve could be his everything.

Since Steve’s arrest, Danny had found the shine had gone off from the job he used to love so much. Five -0 had been disbanded and he was sent back to HPD where they hated his haole ass, so he had immediately asked for leave. The speed with which the leave had been granted was just another indication of how unwanted he was. Now he had an airline ticket in his pocket that would see him back in Jersey by this time tomorrow to try and get this thing with Rachel on track and see his beloved Monkey. He still wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do it. Leaving Steve alone and in prison was becoming the hardest thing he had ever done.

Looking through the windscreen, Danny almost smiled and climbed out of the car - Chin was walking out of the gate.

“How is he?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Same, looks like hell warmed over. Not talking.” Chin shrugged.

“Did you tell him we’re working on getting him out?”

“Told me to tell you, and I quote, ‘Fuck off back to the mainland and forget about us.’” Chin responded apologetically.

“Did he happen to explain how I’m supposed to do that?” Chin placed a firm hand on Danny’s shoulder. “You should go back to Jersey for a while Danny, you can’t do anything here, and Rachel and Grace need you.”

“Steve needs me too.” Danny muttered, his head bowed.

“He’ll need you more when he’s out.”

“He won’t need me.” He sighed and climbed into the Camaro. "He won't need me."


End file.
